By Appolos Christian
As the three months job window closes for the 774,000 Nigerians engaged by the Federal government for Special Public Works, the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) in a proactive measure to implementing government job creation agenda, says it has concluded plans to provide permanent job opportunity for the participants.
Stated in a press release signed by NDE’s Deputy Director Information and Public Relations, Mr Edmund Onwuliri, on behalf of the Director-General, the Directorate further explained that Federal government in its quest to providing jobs for the unemployed Nigerians deemed it necessary to equip the 774,000 Special Public Work participants with skills that would give them more opportunity to earn a living and also become job creators.
In full, the statement said; “Plans have been concluded to expose the participants of the Extended Special Public Works (ESPW) Programme of the Federal Government being implemented by the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment through the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) to entrepreneurship training exercise.
“Participants of the programme also known as the 774,000 jobs will undergo the Basic Business Training (BBT) aimed at exposing them to the basic rudiments of identifying and running micro and small business enterprises.
“The federal Government through the NDE is providing the training as an exit strategy for participants in the ESPW which is a transient job scheme that lasted for three months.”
On how the training has been fashioned to take effect, the statement stated; “The training is scheduled to hold at a central venue in each of the three senatorial districts across the country and three locations within the FCT. Participants are expected to acquire the relevant skills that will enable them identify and manage micro and small businesses of their own after they exit the Extended Special Public Works programme.”
The stated also recalled; “While engaged in the three-month programme, participants were actively engaged in activities within the public works sector where they provided services such as environmental sanitation services in public places, drainage clearing and desilting, vegetation control, road traffic management and other community based and environment specific public works services.
“Providing such services, participants were paid a stipend of N20,000.00 per month for the period of three months that the programme was designed to last.
“One thousand unskilled persons were recruited from each of the 774 local government areas of the nation. It is expected that the training will further enhance the capacity of the participants to migrate from the transient job phase to a sustainable and self reliant statues thereby reducing mass unemployment among the unskilled and unemployed across the country.”
